One of the sad­dest con­ver­sa­tions I have is with peo­ple who failed to join

‘‘My awak­en­ing to the joys of leather on wil­low came at the same time as I had my fi­nan­cial awak­en­ing.’’

work­place su­per schemes in which their em­ploy­ers made match­ing con­tri­bu­tions.

They missed the op­por­tu­nity to put runs on the board, and to have some­one else scor­ing runs for them!

Third, it is amaz­ing how fast the ‘‘singles’’ start adding up to a de­cent in­nings.

This is es­pe­cially true if you put your runs on the board early in life.

The pay­back is huge for those who go hard when young.

Take it from me, hav­ing low lev­els of debt, money in the bank, and a jump on re­tire­ment sav­ing is a won­der­ful thing when your first child is on the way.

Fi­nally, I would urge you to take the scor­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties you get, be­cause you never know when they are go­ing to end.

You never know when you’re go­ing to be pitched that un­playable Goo­gly, or whether rain will end play.

My chance land­ing of that in­vest­ment news­pa­per job meant I learnt to put runs on the board just be­fore house and share prices went berserk.

The for­tunes of my gen­er­a­tion have been split be­tween the prop­erty-own­ers and those who never got started, or started late. Learn from that. Fo­cus on putting runs on the board to­day, not to­mor­row, not next year.

PHOTO: MARK TAYLOR/FAIRFAX NZ

Bren­don Mc­Cul­lum putting runs on the board early in the Cricket World Cup semi fi­nal.